The International Children Peace Prize launched in 2005 by Kidsrights, a Netherland based Child Rights organization, is awarded annually. This year’s award has been given to Sadat Rahman, a 17 year old child from the district of Narail in Bangladesh. The award has been given to him for his innovative Endeavour of addressing and mitigating cyber bullying and harassment through the development of an app named Cyber Teens. Sadat was inspired by a true event of a 15 year old girl victimized of cyber bullying and committed suicide to start organizing a social platform named Narail Volunteers. Through this volunteer organization he initiated the development of Cyber Teens apps through which victims of bullying can report bullying and be address. This app facilitates children to use internet with safety and privacy.
The prize was launched in 2005 at the Capitol, Rome during the World Summit of Nobel Laureate chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of Soviet Union. Sadat is the 17th winner of this prize. Last year’s prize was awarded to two young people Greta Thunberg a climate activist from Cameroon and Divina Malou, a peace activist.
The winner gets a monetary amount of USD 118,000 along with a statuette of Nkosi. Nkosi Johnson was a South African boy diagnosed with HIV/AIDS from birth. He was born in 1989 and died in 2001 aged 12 years old. Within this short span of 12 years he significantly influenced the public paradigms about HIV/AIDS and its impact on the lives of the people. Nkosi during his speech in “International AIDS Conference” concluded his speech as the keynote speaker with- “Care for us and accept us – we are all human beings. We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else – don’t be afraid of us – we are all the same!”
Nelson Mandela mentioned Nkosi as an “icon of the struggle for life.” Nkosi received the International children peace prize posthumously in 2005 as the very first winner of the prize from the hand of Mikhail Gorbachev. In honor of Nkosi a small statue is given to the winner of the prize that shows how a child sets the world in motion. The figurine might remind of the image of Sisyphus toiling over rolling the stone upward.
The prize is awarded to the winner by a Nobel Peace Laureate. This year’s prize has been awarded to Sadat by Malala Yousufzai, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
ABN AMRO, a Dutch bank has been the main sponsor of the prize since 2006.
